This publicly traded company is making it increasingly difficult to be taken seriously by advertisers, investors and its more than 800 million active users, who have a right to be peeved about the email switch.

Am I wrong?

Facebook doesn’t give a hoot about advice from you or me. But if they did, what advice would you give them?

About Joan Stewart

Publicity expert Joan Stewart, a PR mentor aka The Publicity Hound, works with small business owners who need free publicity to promote their expertise. She shows you how to establish your credibility, enhance your reputation, position yourself as an expert, and sell more products and services. To receive her free DIY publicity tips twice a week, subscribe here. See all the ways you can work with Joan. Or contact her and ask a burning question about PR, self-promotion or social media.

Comments

Even worse than changing your email without notice is the fact that anyone who hasn’t claimed their name on Facebook, or Facebook email, was turned into a number. So instead of JoanStewart@Facebook.com, you could be 124567@Facebook.com. I think that’s a real slap in the face to users of Facebook.

I think letting Facebook amass Facebook mail may be a way to avoid a lot of junk mail. Just ignore anything sent to the FB email address and you’ll have one less pile of junk to monitor.

Facebook didn’t steal your private information. You gave it to them.

We all gave Facebook permission to share our personal information, including email, address and anything else we ever chose to share there – including our friends’ information. Nobody, including me, reads privacy policies, especially ones that are pages and pages long.

FB shut down a page with no reason given and I can’t for the life of me reopen it.
It’s insane to have a business where the consumer has literally NO way of communicating with the company and your are forced into something you don’t even want, like FB email and timeline.

I wish they had good competition…competition improves a company or puts them out of business.

The sad truth is that Facebook is free. So you play by Facebook’s rules. The company has a variety of forms you can fill out and submit if you’re having a problem. But don’t wait around for a reply if you have something better to do. You can start here: https://www.facebook.com/help/suggestions/. Also, go over to Mari Smith’s FB page and look for the link she has where you can find all the various forms to submit if you have a gripe about something. She’s at http://www.Facebook.com/MariSmith

Facebook is like an ill behaved child when it comes to user interface changes — seeking forgiveness for manipulating account information rather than asking permission. What’s most disturbing is the site’s bad habit (both from a PR and consumer relations perspective) of making arbitrary changes without giving users any kind of a warning. FB spent months publicizing the changeover to Timeline. And yet, when it comes to sensitive information like publishing cell phone numbers or switching email addresses, the site stays silent until being outed for the changes. What would happen if the broader online community failed to catch these unannounced modifications? For a website that’s all about sharing, its
it’s time for Facebook to start playing nicely in the sandbox and stop being so secretive.

Thanks for continuing to be the pro that you are and sniffing out the vital information we need to keep our heads above water.

I have a big gripe about Facebook and others who are eager to disclose our actual whereabouts to “Friends” or anyone else. (If they are really “Friends” we’ll decide when we want them to have this info.) While this may be ideal for retail businesses who want to encourage walk-in traffic, this is the pits for us homebased entrepreneurs who have no interest in having a “Friend” show up unannounced or even know that we are nearby.

As for launching Find Friends Nearby accidentally? Come on! Evidentally their brain cells are disproportionate to their earnings.

So many of the spur-of-the-moment changes, their awful customer service, etc. make you wonder. It remains to be seen how long it takes for a significant number of users to leave this site. Thanks for your comments, Laurie.

About two months before Facebook’s IPO my teenagers stopped responding to anything I sent them via FB. When I finally noticed after a couple of weeks and asked them why they said “we don’t really use it that much anymore.” The latest boneheaded maneuvers only underscore my gut feeling that the company’s best days are now behind.